


Falling from a tree and a little bit of courage

by charons_boat



Category: Original Work
Genre: Comfort, Cute boys, Falling from a tree, M/M, Magic elements, Minor Angst, cute family stuff, cute girl also, lil bit of supernatural-ness, lil family, maknaes for the win, no i will not be stopped, non major injury, parent friends, revealing secrets, sibling-esque relationships, somewhat serious injury?, the Sims is mentioned, yes i will continue to use made up words to describe hair, youngest rule the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:12:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25397458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charons_boat/pseuds/charons_boat
Summary: The youngest five consider Moon Jin and Rem to be their honorary Mom and Dad. They go to the two men with more of their problems than they do their own parents, and have been for years. It's just a dynamic that works in their friend group without feeling like a burden.
Relationships: Cain & Norae & Hanraoi, Hwang Jeonghui & Hwang Jaeseok & Sacheverell | Sachie & Aeron Akuji & Beaumont Cessair, Rem Barbeau | Beryl/Moon Jin, Side Arrian/Kelcey Ambrose/Verne Langdon
Comments: 4





	Falling from a tree and a little bit of courage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SylviaoftheDepths](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylviaoftheDepths/gifts).



> i hope you like this,, kinda went off track kfjglfjbgs

Everytime Rem and I go back through everything we can remember, years worth of memories with our small friend group, are never sure when our youngest friends began to call us "Dad" and "Mom" respectively. We can't even determine who it was that started it (perhaps it had been one of the twins, who'd never once been scared by Rem's impressive stature and frame, or maybe it had been Aeron in a joke that had caught on a little too well--Beaumont always picked up on Aeron's jokes and made them his own, somehow. Sacheverell was a little too nervous, still, and too scared off offending someone with a poorly made joke.) but it had been going on for so long that even Jaeseok and Jeonghui are now nineteen. Speaking of--

"Mom, Dad! Sachie fell out of the tree again!" Rem sighed heavily in his armchair, and sometimes I wondered if maybe we really were too parental with our youngest friends.

"Jin, can you go get the first-aid kit? I'll bring him inside." Rem pushes all seven feet of himself out of the chair and heads towards the sliding glass door, and I can't help but call out a warning to, "Make sure you don't put him on the carpet this time!" as I walk to the bathroom. It's almost second nature now to open the cabinet behind the mirror and pull out the small box, which we have to restock almost monthly. Sacheverell had gotten really clumsy recently, which is somewhat strange considering the blanchet hadn't been clumsy at all until a few months ago: he'd actually had a grace almost unseen in most growing teenagers.

The others have all crowded around the third youngest by the time I make it into the living room, and I have to force them to go sit anywhere else with an open seat in order to properly see to the minor wounds he'd gotten from his fall. His forearms and shins are covered in red scratches from the bark of the tree, and there are cuts in his knees and one on his cheekbone. I can't help but cluck my tongue as I clean the cuts out with peroxide. Sachie whines, and his lower lip trembles piteously as his eyes water. He's always looked delicate, and the only time he matches that in personality or temperament is when he's been hurt or insulted. Tears spill down over the chubby cheeks he never lost, even though he's twenty now, and his drooping, bright, brown eyes really do fit the description of doe-eyes almost disturbingly well.

"Mom, it hurrrts!" I lean forward and press a soft kiss to his uninjured cheek and use a little bit of peroxide on the cut currently spilling blood over his cheek. Pained tears cut tracks through the blood before I wipe it up with a soft rag we keep in the small medical box.

"We have to finish cleaning these so they don't get infected, Sachie. Just a bit more, okay? Can you hold on just a bit longer for Mom and Dad?" The slight boy glances at Rem and nods, silently holding out a slender, long-fingered hand. Rem takes it and kisses the boy's knuckles, prompting a smile that quickly turns into a grimace as it presses against the cut on his cheek. I try to finish quickly, making sure to spread ointment against the big, square bandages I plaster over his knees before biting my lip at the problem of the cut on his face. It's long, almost spanning the whole length of his cheekbone, and is deep enough to probably warrant stitches at a hospital. "Sacheverell, do you want to go to the hospital? If you're careful, the one on your cheek will most likely be fine."

"Uhm… I don't-- I don't like hospitals."

"I know, baby, that's why I asked. You don't have to if you think you'll be too uncomfortable." Even Rem and I didn't know why Sacheverell had such an aversion to hospitals, but the one time we'd had to take him, when he got pneumonia, he'd needed to be sedated because he'd been so scared.

"I don't wanna," he finally whispers. Rem squeezes his hand gently, and I whisper to the injured boy that he can squeeze Rem's hand as hard as he needs in order to think about something other than the pain. He nods and squeezes the big man's hand once more. Jaeseok and Jeonghui watch attentively from the sidelines, the blond and noirette both worried beyond measure about someone they consider to be family. Jaeseok has silent tears trailing down his cheeks, and I remember once again how while Jeonghui has always been louder, her brother has always been the one of the two to show emotion more strongly.

Sachie winces as I carefully rub ointment into the long cut and squeezes Rem's hand so hard that his knuckles turn white. I gently place butterfly bandages over the wound, and then tape a thin layer of gauze over the top for extra security. Rem packs away the medical supplies as I gently kiss the three bandaged areas; Sachie smiles softly, mindful not to smile so widely that he disturbs the bandage on his cheek.

"You're all good now, baby. You can go play again, but make sure to eat something and drink some water first, and make sure to be careful."

"Uhm, about that--" He grabs my sleeve as I stand up, and looking down at him, he looks younger than ever. His features are all soft and pretty, and his big, sad eyes and pouty lips combined with his squishy cheeks make him look like he's barely twelve. His slight build and small stature don't do much to help that either, and next to Rem he always looks terribly small. "Can you, uhm… could you get everyone else to come over too? I need to, uhm, explain why I've been so… clumsy, lately."

"Oh. Okay, sure. Uh, Rem, call up the triplets, I'll get the trio and lumei." It's easiest to get Lucius and Cimeilliauc to do things out of nowhere, so I start with them. They agree to come over in ten minutes after a short text, and I move onto dialing Arrian's number and hoping they're all up and not sleeping. Verne has a bad habit of pulling the other two into naps with him, though I can understand it because even I know how convincing Verne's puppy-eyes can be. Kelcey is the one that answers the phone, which is what usually happens considering how bad Arrian is with technology of any kind. The only reason he knows how to run the microwave in their apartment is because of his unhealthy love for instant ramen.

"Jin? Wha's goin' o _ahhh_ n?"

"Sacheverell fell from the tree and hurt himself--we got him patched up, so don't worry about that--and now he wants to tell everyone something. Could you three come over?" There's rustling from the other side of the phone, and I hear more yawning and some whining I know is probably Verne's protests to being woken up. There's a quiet, soothing voice, and I assume that it's Arrian trying to wake Verne up more.

"Oh, sure. We might be a while, depending on how long it takes Verne to wake up. We'll try to be quick though."

"Thanks. It'll just be us, so you don't need to worry about changing since none of us care. I don't know how urgent this is, but Sachie does seem nervous about it." There's a hum, and suddenly a sleepy voice is talking angrily into the phone.

"Jin, why're we 'wake? Naps'r good 'n you stopped mine."

"Sachie had something he wanted to tell everyone. I think it's pretty important, Verne. You can nap later, and besides, sleeping too much can be bad, y'know?"

"Yeah, okay, _Mom_ ," he sighs into the phone. He probably won't even remember taking the phone from Kelcey when they get here.

"I'll have you know that being called Mom isn't an insult to me at this point, thank you very much." Verne bursts into giggles, and it brings a smile to my face too.

"Why, you're welcome! I think you're very ni--" The call suddenly cuts off to a yelp, and I wonder mindlessly what happened before pocketing my phone and turning to Rem. He's already sitting in his armchair again, with Aeron and Beaumont both resting against his chest. Rem isn't particularly broad for someone so tall--at least, not proportionally--but he does have enough lean muscle on his bony frame to be a comfortable seat. All of the kids have expressed this thought, and I've found I agree.

I sit back in my own armchair with a sigh, and Rem glances up from the book he'd been reading to smile at me. His mouth isn't very big, but his smiles always seem to take up almost half his face. Maybe it's because his face is relatively small too. Sacheverell sits in between Jaeseok and Jeonghui on the couch, with both of the twins holding his hands and rubbing gentle circles into his skin. He seems much calmer now, and I'm glad that they're able to comfort each other so easily.

The moment ends when the door is thrown open, startling Sachie, and Lucius immediately takes the surprise of the moment to throw himself into my lap. I wheeze and try to catch my breath, entirely unprepared for the sudden addition of our bonies friend in my lap. His hair is still an almost painful-to-look-at red and seems to be thoroughly fried.

"Oh, sorry, Jin, I didn't notice you there." The snicker gives away the fact that the redhead did, in fact, notice I'm sitting in _my_ armchair. He'd probably hoped to knock me out instantly, considering he was an insufferable man-child and almost always took everything as a new joke to laugh at. Cimeilliauc sighs and pulls Lucius out of my lap, dropping him into one of the more uncomfortable dining room chairs. Soon after, the triplets arrive, and the trio follows less than a minute later. (They really had just come in their pajamas, and I wondered whether they'd really been napping or if they simply considered sleeping from nine at night to noon a night of sleep plus an early morning nap or two.) Sachie squirms in his seat until he's sitting up straighter and takes a deep breath.

"So, uhm, I'm sure you've probably mostly heard about how much I've been hurting myself recently because I've gotten so clumsy." There are a few affirmative nods, and everyone is focused on the pale-haired boy. "It, uh, kinda has to do with my fear of the hospital. My, uhm, parents aren't my birth parents, which I've only found out recently. They always told me that the people in hospitals would take me away and do terrible things to me in the name of _science_ , and thankfully my immune system is pretty strong, because uhm… I'm some kind of nature spirit. Or like, half of one, at least. I can change into this deer thing, and sometimes it happens accidentally, or only partially, and it's kind of frustrating actually because it's been throwing off my balance. Like, earlier, when I fell out of the tree. My sense of balance suddenly went haywire and I just found myself falling. I'm pretty sure I accidentally almost changed or something, I'm not really… sure. But, I just… now that I'm used to the idea, and since I know you guys all love me and just want the best for me… I figured it would be okay to tell you."

"Ah, thank you for telling us, Sachie. To be fair though, I never really thought you physically resemble your parents. Personality? Yeah, I can see a lot of them in you that way, but-- anyways, it doesn't matter who your parents are, or what kind of living thing you are, because you're our Sachie and nothing could ever make me hate you," I tell him. He immediately looks like he's going to cry again, and when I open my arms he runs into them. Jeonghui gets up almost immediately, brushing her long hair over her shoulder before messing with the TV. When she stands up again, she takes a controller to her brother and keeps the other for herself.

"Mom, Dad, we're playing the Sims. We will not be stopped."

"You might wanna ignore the fifteen cats you two have in this game, it uh. Kinda just-"

"Jaeseok, you weren't supposed to tell them about the cats!"

"Jeez, don't hit me! They were gonna see anyway, what's it matter!"

"Kids, if you don't stop fighting, Sachie gets the controller and you two are sitting in your room in silence until he decides he's done playing." The first time they'd been threatened with this, they weren't aware how absorbed Sacheverell could get in games. He also had a bit of a mean streak at times, and I'd watched him play games even just a few minutes longer after I could tell he'd gotten bored, a mischievous grin on his thick lips the entire time.

The two of them immediately stopped and focused on the screen. Quiet chatter started up around the room, and Verne was trying not to nod off on the couch as he tried to watch the two youngest play their convoluted, cheat-riddled version of the Sims.

Times like these, when the entire group finds time to gather again and just exist with each other, are always nice, especially when Rem is holding my hand like he never wants to let go.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on twt @sunwooseok_ i'm kinda nice i think


End file.
